“They complement each other beautifully,” agrees Rhianna Pezzaniti, project manager for PUBLIC Art in Ravensthorpe and its related exhibition, Fitzgerald Biosphere.

Nicholls and Pezzaniti are talking about FORM Perth city gallery’s final exhibition for the year, which combines two solo exhibitions showcasing the diversity of its programming across WA’s regional communities: Fitzgerald Biosphere by acclaimed local artist Amok Island, and a self-titled solo exhibition by one of WA’s rising Aboriginal art stars, Pilbara-based painter Doreen Chapman, co-presented by FORM’s Spinifex Hill Studios and Martumili Artists.

Growing up in various communities throughout the remote Pilbara, Chapman learnt to paint with her mother, distinguished painter Maywokka May Chapman.

She first exhibited with Martumili Artists in 2010, and has been a frequent presence at FORM’s Spinifex Hill Studios since 2013.

Chapman is distinguished by the freedom of her brushwork and her ability to work large canvases at speed, sometimes switching hands to maintain her frenetic pace, lending her canvases a distinctive and compelling energy.

As a deaf woman, painting is an important means of communication for Chapman, providing vital insight into her experiences.

Amok Island’s Fitzgerald Biosphere showcases new work by the popular Fremantle- based artist.

Over the past 18 months FORM, in partnership with CBH Group, has launched a series of monumental street-art murals on CBH grain silos across southern WA, including Australia’s first silo mural project in the Wheatbelt community of Northam, in March last year.

Fitzgerald Biosphere is new work related to Amok Island’s recently completed commission for CBH silos in Ravensthorpe, within the Fitzgerald Biosphere, an area of internationally significant biodiversity situated at the border of the Goldfields- Esperance and Great Southern regions.

Though Chapman and Amok Island each have a very different aesthetic sensibility and relationship to landscape, the pair are linked by their vibrant pastel colour palette, the inspiration they draw from WA’s regional landscape and their distinctive eye for capturing the unique qualities of the State’s flora and fauna with humour and charm.

The two exhibitions are complemented by a selection of short films showcasing highlights from FORM’s regional program in recent years.

This includes documentation of the big silo murals produced by FORM, captured by Peacock Visuals, in Northam and Ravensthorpe during 2015 and 2016, and documentation of Chapman at work at Spinifex Hill Studios.